This study brings into focus
the experiences of teenagers (13-19 years) subjected to violence in the
home. The purpose of my study was to gain knowledge regarding the
conditions related to socialisation in the proximity of violence through
listening to, interpreting and attempting to understand the teenagers’
narratives about life when violence is an everyday occurrence.

Primarily, I wanted to obtain
a picture of the conditions under which these girls and boys grew up as
they themselves described them. My questions are primarily concerned
with the teenagers’ experiences of violence in the home, the
strategies they used to cope with a violent home environment and finally
with their self-images. Secondarily, my intention was to analyse and
interpret the picture that emerged in an attempt to understand the
meaning of socialisation in the proximity of violence, primarily based
upon theories of sexualised violence (aspects of power and gender),
coping, resilience, and the social heritage of violence-related
behaviour (the inter-generational transmission of violent behaviour). My
purpose was also to relate the descriptions and analysis of domestic
violence, and the associated conditions under which these young people
grew up, to previous research within the field of family violence.

The research is grounded in
feminist theory which views the gender and power relationships between
women and men as a determining principle of social organisation. Men as
a group dominate and actively oppress women as a group. The negative
effects of the unequal allocation of power between the sexes at the
societal level correspond to male dominance and wife battering at the
individual level.

I associate this with the
established Scandinavian concept of ”sexualised violence," used
to describe forms of abuse and sexual exploitation such as rape, incest
and other sexual assaults, pornography, the sex trade and sexual
harassment.

By concentrating upon
in-depth studies of a few individuals, I wanted to capture both the
universal and the unique by working inductively and empathetically. A
narrative approach was chosen in order to allow interaction and to ease
the process of disclosure for the informants. The premise was that each
of the young people would relate his or her own truth, i.e. describe a
picture of life as he or she has lived it.

Establishing contact with the
teenagers was an arduous and extremely time-consuming process of several
steps. After an introductory, unsuccessful poster campaign, the
procedural method followed a funnel-shaped model: at first wide and open
as meetings were held with approximately 3,800 teenagers and 700 adults
in conjunction with lectures and visits to schools, recreation centres,
sports associations and similar in a large number of communities. I
spoke with approximately 450 young people during the first years, most
of them girls. During the first four years when the project telephone
line was open, I spoke with 178 teenagers more than twice each and met
59 of them personally. Fifteen of these became the study’s informants
(ten girls and five boys). They were interviewed from six to ten times
each over four years. The interviews were conducted in the greatest
possible secrecy and far-reaching security measures were applied.

The interviews progressed in
steps from background information to the most private and sensitive
questions about the violence which had taken place in the home. The
number of interviews was determined case by case; the interviews were
concluded when no or few new aspects emerged. The processing of the
texts led to the construction of six overweening themes, each with a
number of subcategories: daily life in the family, relationships,
everyday coping strategies, the processing of feelings, violence as a
condition and self-image.

The informants and the
families

Ten of the young people
included in the study are girls and five are boys. All of them were 15
or 16 years old when the interviews began and 18 or 19 at their
conclusion. The conditions under which they grew up include both
similarities and wide dissimilarities. Barely half of the young people
grew up in a nuclear family with their biological parents. Ten of them
lived with their biological mothers up to their teen years. Sometimes
the biological father also lived with them, at times another man and not
the same man every year. Three of the teenagers have no siblings, two
have one sibling each and ten have more than one sibling. In the ten
families with more than two children, seven of the informants are the
eldest or second eldest child in the family. Most of the informants are
accustomed to regular disruptions caused by separations and household
moves. Only two of the teenagers spent all of their primary school years
within the same school district. According to the teenagers themselves,
only two of the families are affluent. Six families belong to a median
category. The financial circumstances of seven of the families are such
that they often require public assistance.

Large quantities of alcohol
have been part of the equation in eleven of the fifteen families. In
seven of the families, only the man has abused alcohol/drugs. In four of
the families, the woman has also abused alcohol/drugs, but in no case
was the woman the only adult substance abuser in the family.

All of the informants
witnessed violence in the family. Thirteen of them have also been
subjected to physical violence and are thus both witnesses and victims.
In fourteen cases, the primary perpetrator of violence in the family is
the biological father. In half of the families, another man associated
with the family has also perpetrated violence. In eight cases the
biological father alone was the perpetrator. In four cases the father
and stepfather or other men perpetrated violence. In three families, the
woman was also violent.

Five of the girls, but none
of the boys, were victims of sexual assault. In eight of the families,
the mothers have been sexually assaulted; in two of these families, the
girl was also sexually assaulted. The girl and the boy who were not
personally subjected to physical violence are part of the group of four
teenagers from families in which sexual assault has not occurred to
their knowledge.

The proximity of violence
and intimate relationships

There are many areas of
commonality within the teenagers’ stories about daily family life.
These included their descriptions of what they believed to be normal
family life while they were growing up. For them, this was a family with
a drunken and belligerent father who battered the mother and sometimes
the children as well. They describe a home environment lacking in
structure and fixed points of reference such as established mealtimes,
bedtimes, etc. Nearly all of the teenagers have often had to change
their living environments. In those cases where the biological father
was no longer a part of the family, other males have been associated
with the family for shorter or longer periods.

The family rules were
dictated by the father and were difficult to abide by as many of them
were unexpressed and often changed at random. The environment was
experienced as wholly unpredictable. For example, they never knew when
or why a violent situation would arise. A constant state of preparedness
prevailed within the family prior to the violent incident and nearly
total silence reigned afterward. The family members adjusted their
behaviour according to the man’s rules in order to avoid further
violence, if possible.

The teenagers experienced
violence in highly divergent ways. Most of them consider the
psychological violence to be the absolute worst. The combination of
psychological and physical violence is the most difficult, particularly
for the five girls who have been victims of sexual assault by their
fathers and/or their mothers’ cohabitants. The boys have been spared
sexual assault but were often forced to listen as their fathers raped
their mothers without being able to intervene in her defence.

When the teenagers describe
their own feelings and their relationships to their parents, they relate
both positive and negative judgments, more positive towards their
mothers than their fathers. All of the girls use the expressions care
for or love to describe their feelings towards their mothers. "Mom
has let me down, but she is my mother and she has protected me, I love
her," say most of the girls. The girls say that their relationships
with their fathers shut down when he was violent. When not violent, he
was a normal dad with both good and bad sides. None of the boys use the
expressions care for or love about their fathers. They all speak
negatively of their fathers, though a couple of them report feeling a
certain sympathy. All of the boys except for one express positive
feelings for their mothers.

All of the young people are
very negative towards the authority figures (social workers, school
psychologists, counsellors, child psychologists, etc.) with whom they
have come into contact. Their prejudice against professionals they deem
inadequate is unmitigated. The youths are most negative towards public
officials from the social services department ("pimples on the
ass" who "deserve to have a price on their heads"),
followed by personnel from Children’s and Youth Psychiatric Services.
The police are accorded predominantly positive judgments. Most of the
teenagers feel that one should not confide in teachers and some of them
have negative experiences of having done so.

For many of the girls, their
relationships with boyfriends are so important that their self-esteem is
jeopardised. Half of them have been subjected to physical violence by
their boyfriends, in several cases the violence was life-threatening.
The boys also talk about "a good relationship." The boys say
that they don’t want their relationships to their girlfriends to be as
stormy as those of their parents, nor for the relationships to include
as much drinking. This notwithstanding, the boys have on occasion been
drunk and have hit their girlfriends.

Coping with events and
emotions

The young people cope with
these violent events by using different strategies at different ages.
When they were younger, passive strategies were frequently necessary as
the children were too weak to act and intervene in violent events. The
older youths have had access to a wider range of coping strategies and
possible actions. They have been able to act either by keeping away from
home or by staying home to monitor events. They have also been able to
choose to run away from the entire situation. Making their choices in
each situation has brought about great inner turmoil.

When the teenagers made no
concrete intervention into a violent situation, they were still able to
cope with their situations, though in a less conspicuous manner. For
example, they chose to keep their thoughts to themselves rather than to
talk about what was going on. They tried to forgive their fathers for
their violent actions or to keep their feelings in check by refusing to
reveal them. All of these teenagers try to create their own realities
through poetry, song, music, dance, theatre, painting or sculpture.
Remaining silent, keeping a tight rein over their emotions and the
situation while simultaneously seeking out alternative forms of
expression from their locked positions were action strategies employed
by all of them. Denying reality by fantasising about it, dreaming up a
new reality or lying about the situation were strategies used rather
frequently by most of the teenagers. However, directly harmful
strategies such as intoxicating themselves with alcohol and drugs or
attempting suicide have also been practised.

The youths express a broad
register of emotions. Fear is common to all. All are and have been
afraid of their fathers, not always because of what they might do to
them personally, but rather for what they might do to their mothers and
siblings. All of the young people say that they are burdened with
feelings of shame, guilt, betrayal and distrust. All of them express
deep and intense feelings of loneliness and of being left out. Nearly
all of them have been victims of bullying.

Feelings of powerlessness,
anxiety, worry, responsibility and fatigue become more apparent when the
youths place themselves in relation to the violence. The girls usually
feel more threatened than do the boys. All of the young people say that
they have not been able to rely upon any other human being and that they
did not feel they had any influence over the violence in their homes,
which intensified their feelings of vulnerability.

Most of the teenagers hate
their fathers. This hatred is often associated with a wish for, and
plans for, revenge. Two thirds of the teenagers (ten individuals) have
upon occasion nourished a wish that their fathers would die or have felt
that they wanted to kill their fathers.

Longing, wishes, hope and
love are usually directed away from the time and place in which the
youths find themselves and towards another time, anywhere else but here.

I was shaped by the
violence in my home

An assertion common to all of
the young people’s narratives is that physical violence hurts but
psychological violence is worse. They are agreed on that violence should
not be part of a relationship but equally agreed on that it is difficult
to avoid.

According to the teenagers,
the causes of violence are to be found in alcohol and drugs. In
addition, there is something "sick" about their fathers, there
is something wrong with them mentally. The young people, who themselves
were often beaten but never understood why, believe that their fathers’
violent behaviour may be ingrained in their personalities, that they may
be burdened by their own difficult childhood experiences. The memories
insist upon admittance; what happened cannot be explained and excused,
it has left its mark, they say. "Perhaps the meaning of it all is
that we are supposed to learn from the hard things, but my father’s
violence has made me think badly of myself and be suspicious of other
people. The violence and the fear has made me to provoke violence,"
say some of the girls.

All but one girl are
convinced that their fathers are capable of killing them and the rest of
the family. All have experienced threats as concrete and practicable.
Thirteen of the fifteen youths believe that they are alive today because
their mothers were able to protect them from the violence of their
fathers/other men. Eleven of the fifteen state that they will not be
able to feel good as long as their fathers are alive.

A good relationship with a
partner is a means of acquiring security and is something the girls
strive for but have not achieved. Several of them have been physically
abused and have lost their self-esteem in their relationships with
boyfriends. All five boys have on some occasion perpetrated violence
upon their girlfriends, but resist seeing themselves as batterers.

Growing up in the
proximity of violence

The abuse of alcohol has had
a negative effect on familial interaction. Violence is also more brutal
in those families where the man is gravely addicted and in families
where both adults are substance abusers.

The fathers have dictated
over the families by isolating them. They have shown contempt and
derision, have humiliated their families, withdrawn evidence of love and
perpetrated violence upon them to the point of torture. The children
have not been given the opportunity to react. Silence has been demanded
from the other family members. The teenagers in this study have been
strongly affected by having been taught as children to keep silent.
Their fathers’ control and exercise of power has been so strong that
in the end, they did not necessarily have to perpetrate physical
violence to enforce their wills. For the young people, particularly the
girls, psychological violence was often enough. A constantly present
threat has made the young people vigilant and suspicious. The total
dominance by their fathers has taken from these young people the
possibility of forming good and trustful relationships. They have been
unable to make peer contact and develop peer relationships, which has
had a negative impact on the development of their social skills.

The conditions under which
they grew up have given this study’s informants frames of reference
that differ from those of their peers. The distrust of the world around
them created by their childhood has functioned as a protective device to
shield them from further harm and betrayal. The girls in particular have
become masters at "reading people and situations." The
teenagers occupy a place apart among their peers, they are regarded as
deviant and are teased, beaten and bullied. The pattern has recurred
even when they have moved and changed schools. It is clear that these
children are doubly victimised. The violence perpetrated by the father
in the home is mirrored at school. The teenagers do not seem to have
strategies for coping with this further victimisation. The
"inherited vulnerability" has left them with fewer resources
for avoiding violence and victimisation in situations outside of the
home.

A change occurs during the
course of the study. The teenagers perception of the violence that
occurred during their childhood has clearly changed; today, the
teenagers have a different concept of what it means to live a
"normal life."

The boys do not want to
become like their fathers and the girls are determined not to accept
situations like those of their mothers. Despite these statements, the
boys have on occasion hit their girlfriends and believed that the girls
deserved to be hit and the girls have remained with their boyfriends
even after having been humiliated and abused by them. This indicates
that the reproduction of violence has functioned largely according to
the theory of transmission. The boys explain their use of violence by
saying that the girls goaded them into it, which excepts them from
responsibility. The girls who have been battered by their boyfriends
most often find an explanation that relieves their boyfriends from guilt
in their eyes, such as alcohol or drugs. The girls blame themselves.

A socially inherited tendency
towards violence could be intimated with regard to the boys while the
girls are found once again in the position of victim. The teenagers do
not want to assume the patterns of their parents, yet their social
heritage still seems to catch up with them. It is difficult for them to
shake off and be rid of the childhood experiences which have been carved
into them. They cannot identify the core, they do not know why the
violence has occurred, therefore, they also do not know what they should
be running from or casting away.

If there is no support to be
found in their surroundings, whether at home, school or within the
community, the support must be created within the teenager himself or
herself and this is precisely what has occurred. The teenagers have made
changes within the given frames of reference, they have developed
"help towards self-help." They have been able to bypass the
demand for silence without betraying the family. They have shaped their
thoughts into words through poems, diaries, fables, short stories,
plays, lyrics and all else they could devise. They no longer allow the
culture of silence to fully dominate them. They have spoken out through
the written word, the directed word from a stage or through music.

Surviving the proximity of
violence

It takes both strength and
courage to survive difficult childhood conditions as these informants
are doing. The teenagers strive to make the invalid valid by writing
about it, studying facts about violence and substance abuse and
attempting to retain their reason. "He cannot get into my mind. He
can’t control my thoughts!" They try to make the invisible
visible by running away, going to the police and asking for help,
starving themselves or bingeing, attempting suicide and, by various
means, attracting attention that will lead to change. "I thought
about doing the usual, running away from home and being searched for by
the police and all that…but I just couldn’t handle it one more time.
I could go to the police myself, after all." They try to make the
evil disappear; they pray, they forgive and they attempt to create a
state of peace and quiet in the home through denial. "I start
drinking. Right away." Nevertheless, the teenagers may despite
these attempts lose their fight for the right to talk about their lives
and thus interpret their own reality. Once the fight seems decided so
that preferential rights to interpretation seem always to fall to the
father, the teenagers are prepared to give up. "I thought I had
nothing left then ... so I picked up the razor blade and cut."

The picture communicated by
the teenagers is that the violence is sporadic, incalculable, constant
and frightening. Sexual assault and events when the mother and siblings
have hovered in mortal danger are described as the worst that could
happen; the psychological violence is experienced most strongly in such
situations. There have been witnesses to the event, but seldom has
anyone intervened. Silence has prevailed after a violent episode. The
events were significant because they have meant that the teenagers have
had life experiences vastly different from those of their peers.

In the home, the outer
conditions are characterised by the proximity of sexualised violence.
The man’s dominance and violent actions create a threatening
atmosphere and his demands for silence in solidarity are driven forward
using dictatorial techniques. The family members live under constant
oppression and the woman is kept in place in accordance with the
relatively covert subordination. The definition with which I introduced
the study, that the proximity of violence in the home consists of wife
battering, no longer applies when presenting the experiences of youth.
In thirteen of the fifteen families, the mother is not the only one
abused. Almost all family members are victims of violence by a male
perpetrator and several girls and mothers are subjected to sexual
assault. The informants in this study are not only witnesses, close
enough to observe the violence; they are also physically subjected to
violence. The teenagers are thus much closer to the violence than
"in the proximity," which is what the proximity of violence
originally stood for. The teenagers in this study cannot only observe
what is happening; they are pulled into what is occurring to the fullest
extent. Violence surrounds them. Everyday life for these teenage
children is characterised to the greatest possible extent by the
presence of violence.

The symptoms and effects
visited upon the children by violence are usually not connected to the
sexualised violence practised in the home. The taboo against speaking
out and gaining acknowledgment of one’s own experiences impedes
confirmation of the teenager’s inner and outer reality. The silence
and consignment to invisibility leads to isolation and a thorough and
total feeling of being powerless and alone. The inner experiences lead
to individual attempts to overcome both the problems and the feelings.
The children’s attempts to overcome their living conditions make it
clear that the problem-focused strategies are seldom possible; all that
then remains are the emotion-focused strategies in order to overcome the
feeling. Having no real opportunities for action, the children perceive
themselves to be powerless and these circumstances seem also to lead to
an inner vulnerability that aches without cease. In order to avoid the
pain of the open wound, the children find strategies to conceal their
lack of a skin. The children create a protective carapace through
strategies that seem to ease the pain.

The significance of the
negative effect of violence upon the teenagers’ well-being is
reinforced when they are in arenas outside the home, at school and in
the community in a wider sense. The presence of violence is the actual
reality that is reflected in their souls and constitutes the frame of
reference for possible thoughts and actions. When the children are not
in the home, the demand to keep secrets rests constantly upon them. Of
necessity, this leads them to keep a distance between themselves and the
people they encounter outside the home. The children perceive themselves
as being more mature and are perceived as different by their peers. In
school, this difference may be perceived as a threat to the other
children and it is possible that this is the root of the bullying these
children endure. The fact that the child is subjected to insult by his
or her peers and is neglected by the adults at the school reinforces
feelings of alienation and contributes to his or her feelings of being
unwanted and worthless. The inner experience tells them that they do not
count. The inner feeling of distrust of the adult world that is created
in the home is reinforced and becomes a double victimisation, due to
their being let down by the adults at school as well. The fact that the
adults at school discount the events is perceived more as a confirmation
of the child’s meaninglessness than as a betrayal.

With the passage of time, a
situation arises that may differ according to the individual and lead to
a variety of strategies and solutions. At times, the child may become
exhausted due to the energy expended in maintaining the balance between
the actual outer world and the invisible inner world.

In some cases, this leads the
child to compromise with his or her inner world and go outside the
family to seek help. The outer conditions in the societal arena then
emerge in perfect clarity. The professional actors collaborate to make
the problem invisible, to keep the crimes hidden and to allow the child
to be forgotten. The actions of adults mean that society’s planned
helping measures remain unusable. When the children encounter this
complete betrayal from the adult world, hopelessness settles in and the
perception of being totally abandoned invades the child.

The escape routes that seem
possible to the child are either to wait for the day that papa no longer
lives, since life cannot begin until papa is dead, or to give up his or
her place in life. The child’s strategies to overcome become either to
quite simply try to bear the situation or to attempt to end his or her
life with suicidal actions. The outer conditions limit opportunities to
handle the inner reality in another way. The presence of violence is a
matter of life and death.

That which could also happen
is that life takes a different turn with support found in various
protecting factors within and surrounding the child. The silenced child
may find strategies that allow his or her interior to be heard and seen.
Through creating text, pictures, music and movements, the child
processes the traumas of childhood. If the outside world confirms these
creations, the child in turn is confirmed and his or her inner world is
acknowledged.

If the child who breaks the
taboo of silence encounters insightful listeners, the spiral of
validation can begin. If the child who seeks support from another
individual finds a true friend or partner, the loneliness lessens. If
the child who seeks help encounters adults and professionals who dare to
let go of the fear and see the child’s reality, the child is granted
worth in himself or herself and in the world. His or her powers of
resistance can be mobilised, inner strength confirmed and the path
towards a positive self image opens.

The teenagers become
survivors who, despite their feelings of shame, guilt, betrayal and
sadness, can overcome their situations using their own resources of
creative powers, strength and self-worth. An intractable will can keep
the spark of life burning within these teenagers. In the presence of
violence, life becomes question not of living, but of surviving.

The teenagers also call
themselves "survivors." Developing the courage to say no and
to set boundaries based upon their own convictions are examples of
powers of survival. Another is to use one’s imagination and dreams to
set a goal to live up to and to hold fast to the belief that the goal
will be realised. To alleviate the pain by forgiving or by giving up one’s
plans to change anyone other than oneself, to put one’s energies into
creative forms of expression instead of dwelling on the situation and
becoming bitter are further expressions of the capacity to survive.

The fact that the teenagers
are survivors should mean that they have developed the qualities
necessary for resilient function. The fantasies and hopes, and even the
search for explanation and understanding, are there. That which is
missing, however, are other significant positive relationships outside
the family, the access to sources other than those parents have been
able to offer, such as a secret ally. One aspect that differentiates
survivors from other victims of violence within the family is an adult
contact with good intentions. In my study, such a contact can be said to
have been available to only two of the teenagers and then to a limited
extent.

Another distinguishing
characteristic of survivors is their greater assumption of
responsibility for younger siblings and household pets. This assumption
of responsibility can absolutely be said to apply to these fifteen
teenagers. All demonstrate awareness of responsibility and a caring
rationality. Has the teenagers’ capacity to recover blossomed by
virtue of strong feelings of responsibility and caring for others? Could
it be that taking responsibility for mother and siblings gives the
teenagers a sense of being needed, of being meaningful? To be needed can
be a reason to exist, to keep on living. It may even be the satisfaction
of being needed and getting a positive response, being allowed to
experience a good and positive relationship. It may also be that the
teenagers, through taking responsibility for others, keep "the
evil" at bay. They can become wholly caught up in caring for others
and thus temporarily avoid seeing their own situations. They feel
responsible for the survival of others and, consequently, survive
themselves.